ORIGINAL FICTION NEEDS FEEDBACK

Hello my blog readers! I am saddened by the announcement that my stories have come to a halt. I have had a lot of fun writing them but now it is up to my blog readers to show their support and stop lurking and please give me some feedback!

Jenny Blackbirch the pirate has just been taken to the Windriders Guild in Sharn... is she going to be honored, tortured, imprisoned? What is her fate... it is in YOUR hands!

Zan, Beasley, Solcloud & Jenny stand at an ornate door, what lies on the other side? What does their future hold? that too is in YOUR (my readers) hands.

Please leave feedback here as well as email me at TheExperiencedNoob AT Gmail DOT com.

Sharn, the City of Towers (Original Fiction by Xan)

They arrived in Sharn only a few days later with their captive ship and crew securely locked away in the brig. As they approached the harbor two small Deneith mercenary airships approached along each side of the Dryad Duchess.
“Jenny Blackbirch,” the loudspeaker from one of the airship boomed “you and your crew have been allowed safe passage into Sharn due to your ‘cargo.’ You will make your way to dock number fourteen and tie up there.”
The Dryad Duchess pulled into dock number fourteen and a small airship pulled the Onyx into the adjacent dock. Half orcs and bulky humans tied their ships off. Jenny walked to the side of her ship and noticed three official looking humanoid figures waiting at the bottom of the loading ramp. She walked down to greet her welcoming party.
“Hello there,” she started, “I assume I have you three to thank for the escort into port without confrontation?” As she got closer to the three individuals she noticed they had slightly pointed ears and fair complexions as well as strange tattoos that seemed to glow on their bodies. One half elf, a male, had the tattoo on his right cheek; the other two females had beautiful dresses with plunging necklines that revealed a similar tattoo on their chests. The taller of the two females began to speak.
“Jenny Blackbirch, daughter of House Lyrandar excoriate Theala, you have been summoned by Lord Toansus d’Lyrandar of the Windwrights Guild. Please come with us."

Truth is Discovered (Original Fiction by Xan)

Blackfin waved his arms in large arcs as his giant Balka Whale tooth blades glistened like polished pearls in the setting sunlight. Jenny, with the grace of a dancer, moved in fluid motions to avoid nearly every swing of the massive blades. Countering the attacks with a silver cutlass in one hand and a small dagger in the other hand Jenny tried to advance on Blackfin. The two captains matched one another blow for blow never allowing the other to gain the upper hand. Blackfin knew his ship well and was leading Jenny back towards the bow where he had a winch with a line attached ready to allow him the upper hand. The evil captain reached for the line, kicked Jenny, and took a swipe at a parallel rope which counterweighted his massive frame and launched him up to the topsail boom. Jenny looked for a way up to Blackfin and yelled to her crewmate Maccus who was standing in the rigging firing his guns down onto the deck of the ship.
“Mac!” she yelled.
Without hesitation or another order Maccus saw a rope on a pulley near him that led down to Jenny. He jumped into the rope and cut one side. Maccus and Piper were more than enough weight to catapult Jenny up to Blackfin’s perch. Jenny and Blackfin continued their duel, this time always being mindful of their footing on the boom. Blackfin dropped one of his blades as Jenny struck a lucky blow to his right hand, but Blackfin countered it with a swift uppercut the knocked Jenny directly onto her back. Luckily Jenny kept her balance while prone on the boom.
The fighting on the deck of the chip had slowed down as both sides watched this epic battle amongst their captains take center stage. Both sides knew that the battle would only be decided through this mighty duel.
“Looks to me I will be taking yer ship after all, Blackbirch.” Blackfin laughed triumphantly as he made his way towards his powerless victim. “You know your father had the same look on his face when I carved him up too.” He lunged at Jenny.
Jenny lifted her left hand up as if to try and stop the blade coming down but as she did so a burst of blue light appeared to shoot out of her hand as a massive wind seemed to come out of nowhere and push Blackfin off balance. He wobbled on the boom and slipped from the boom. As he fell more than the fifty feet to the deck of the Onyx he closed his eyes before impact and then he felt the joints in his hip, knee, and ankle crack grotesquely. He opened his eyes and screamed out in pain only to realize he had stopped a few feet from the deck, his foot had been caught up in a rope that now held him suspended from the foremast boom.
“Looks like we won this fight,” Kilzar walked up to the dangling shark captain and slapped him on his broken leg, “and we even have ourselves a piñata to celebrate with.”
Jenny’s crew laughed as they surveyed the damage to the Onyx and watched as the remaining members of the crew threw down their weapons in surrender to these brave sailors. Jenny made her way down the rigging by sticking a dagger in the sail and sliding down to the deck.
“What are we going to do with them now?” Salt belted from the Duchess helm.
“We are going to take them to Sharn to stand trial as pirates.” Jenny laughed at the irony of her words.
“What about us, ma’am?” Piper queried. “Won’t we be hung as pirates too when we make port?
“I have a feeling that bringing in the notorious Blackfin and his now crippled Onyx will redeem us.” Jenny assured the smallest member of her crew. “Hoist the white flag and make way to Breland and her home city of Sharn.”
“AYE CAP’N,” was the reply of the entire crew.

Attack on the Onyx (Original Fiction by Xan)

With the six guns on the starboard side loaded and ready to fire with a flip of a switch and a run of fuse Maccus and Piper remain below decks for their captains’ orders. Kilzar sat in wait on the steps between the gun deck and the main deck to relay the order to fire. Salt stood in a crouch at the helm of the Dryad Duchess ready to flip the switch to release the air elemental that lay dormant in the bindings of the ship. Jenny stood at the forecastle deck ready with a hatchet in her hand to cut the tow line connecting the crippled Duchess to the dreaded Onyx.
The crew aboard the Duchess lay in wait, they were so quiet and still they could hear Blackfin barking orders to his crew over the crashing of the waves on the ship.
“Tighten the Fore Sail you mangy sea dogs!” The gurgle and the coarseness of the voice could only be accredited to the dreaded shark known as Blackfin. “Keep that Jib tight you bilge rat!”
Jenny’s stomach turned as she reflected on the visions of her father bleeding out in that Inn over a year ago, branded by the Black Delta, the light fading out of his eyes as he gasped his last words, “Promise me you will not go looking for Blackfin, but you will RUN and take the Duchess far away from here.”
“He came looking for me, Father.” Jenny mumbled under her breath as she tightened her grip on the hatchet. “He took our ship and it is time to take her back.” She took a deep breath and barked the words that her deck hands had been waiting to hear. “NOW!”
As if the crew were one being everything happened at once. The fuses started sparking and spitting as they slowly crept like a fiery snake towards the six guns on the starboard side of the Duchess, the windy roar of the air elemental could be heard as it ripped in a circular motion around the bindings encircling the ship, and the mooring line holding the Duchess hostage by her bow dropped into the water. The Duchess leapt forward in the water like a horse rears up on its rear legs before bolting. Just as the elemental brigantine drew up along the port side of the Onyx the six guns thundered to life raking it with splinters of wood and steel bursting into the air. The schooner lurched and stalled as the main mast took a direct hit and came crashing to the deck crossing the gap between the two vessels and creating a perfect boarding platform for the crew of the Duchess.
Without so much as an order to board the Onyx, Kilzar had already fired his blunderbuss into the disoriented crew of the schooner and was on his way across the fallen mast. Fire of his fallen ancestors burned in his eyes as he pulled out a second hand axe and ran into the fray yelling out battle cries in ancient dwarven. Salt was standing at the helm as he reached into an iron chest at his feet and pulled out what looked to be a small rusty cannon barrel the length of his forearm. Within seconds Salt’s right forearm had been replaced by this cannon barrel and Salt was firing fist sized cannonballs at the opposing vessel taking down two or three crewmen at a time. Maccus had strapped on a leather harness in which Piper could easily sit and cover his massive friends’ backside as they traversed the ship in great spans. Maccus scaled up the Duchess’ foremast in seconds and traversed to the Onyx in a blink of an eye, his massive ape-like arms propelling him with supernatural speed all the while Piper was raining down a barrage of pistol shot from his harness. The pirate crew of the Onyx was in disarray not knowing what had happened only seconds before now they were fighting for their lives in a seemingly losing battle against a massive army of six.
Amidst the shrapnel of exploding ship and musket balls Jenny made her way to the deck of the Onyx and after cutting down many rogue pirates she had located Blackfin near the foremast. Their eyes locked and it seemed that the world slowed down as the two engaged in battle.

Taking Back the Duchess (Original Fiction by Xan)

Like a water strider bug across a still pond the crew in their elemental powered row boat skidded across the water in a perpetual pool of still waters upon the rougher waters of the Thunder Sea. Maccus’ arms bulged as he held onto the side of the small vessel to look under the boat he was shocked to behold what he saw. Beneath the ship was a humanoid form of a large ogre-like figure but made completely out of the waters of the surrounding sea. Like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders this gargantuan watery ogre held the small ship on its shoulders.
“My god, Jenny,” Maccus exclaimed, “I had no idea your father had friends such as these!”
“Neither did I, Mate.” Jenny smiled at her good fortune.
“There she be, Cap’n!” Kilzar pointed to the horizon as his mechanical eye whirred as it retracted back into his head like a spyglass.
“Shu’ei,” Jenny hollered, “slow down slightly so that we may board the Duchess quietly and not raise suspicion.
“Aye, aye Cap’n,” gurgled Shu’ei in a burbling rumble like a geyser about to erupt.
The small rowboat started to slow down in the water and settle back onto its surface. The waves of the Thunder Sea still did not come within five feet of the small vessel even though the seas were experiencing waves larger than a small gnome. As they approached the Duchess Ol’ Salt commented on the fact that Blackfin’s schooner had to resort to towing the brigantine because he was missing Red Dog’s hook to control the bound water elemental within it. With the considerable size difference between the two vessels and Blackfin’s ship being controlled strictly by sail and oar gave Jenny and her crew a speed advantage.
The small boat pulled in beside the Duchess just as the sun began to set on the Thunder Sea. The beautiful reds and oranges reflecting off the water and the sun at their backs gave them the upper hand as they boarded the ship and took care of the few guards riding on the sleeping vessel.
“Maccus, Piper, n’ Kilzar” Jenny began to whisper her orders to her men, “go below and get the cannons ready to fire.”
“AYE!” they whispered back with gusto.
“Salt, take the helm.” Jenny pointed to the elemental controls of the beautiful brigantine as she tossed him the hook of her father.
“Where is Rum?” Salt queried.
Jenny looked around and drew her sword. “I have not seen him since we took out the guard on the deck.”
“Shall we look for him Cap’n?” Kilzar had a gleam in his mechanical eye as he too pulled out his hand axe and small blunderbuss pistol.
“No time,” Jenny ordered. “We will have one shot to drop the sails, spur on the elemental, and rake The Onyx before Blackfin will be onto us. We have to make it quick.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” was the reply of the crew in unison as they took their positions.

An Unlikely Partnership (Original Fiction by Xan)

“I think the first thing we should do is find fresh water, Captain.” Bad Rum looked to his captain with an air of cruelty in his voice.
“You are right, Rum,” Jenny looked to him with a hint of disgust in her voice. “You always had a thing for self preservation.
“While you were taking a nap I found a natural spring on the rocks just a few hundred paces within the darkness of these coconut trees, Captain.” Bad Rum hissed as he pointed to the North.
“Well then, we should waste no time gathering provisions. Then after we gain our strength we shall look for a way off this rock and gain our precious Duchess back.” Jenny beckoned her crew to follow her as she made her way in the direction of Bad Rum’s footprints on the beach.
The rag tag group of pirates hiked into the trees and they discovered beautiful spring lined with black lava rock. Without skipping a beat Kilzar ran to the water, stripping his tattered clothes and dove in. He vanished in the crystal clear water and bubbles ceased to float on the water where he entered.
“KILZ!” roared Salt.
Jenny started stripping off her coat and sashes to dive in after him when like a shot out of a cannon Kilzar flew out of the water and slammed into a nearby tree. The crew ran to the slumped over dwarf and lifted the broken tree off his limp form.
“WHO DISTURBS MY WATERS?” roared a voice like the sound of a waterfall on boulders.
Jenny stood up with a coconut in her hand ready to defend what remained of her crew. “My name in Captain Jenny Blackbirch of the Dryad Duchess, daughter of the late ‘Red Dog’ Blackbirch, marooned on this island by the foul fish Blackfin. To whom am I addressing? Friend or Foe?”
A roar of laughter softened the roaring waterfall to the sound of a babbling brook. “THE Red Dog,” burbled a softened reply out of what seemed to be the water itself.
“Yes,” Jenny replied. “Who are you stranger? Show yourself!”
Within the water a giant shape formed out of the center and moved towards the pirates. “I am called many things, but I prefer Shu’ei.”
“What are you?” Maccus asked respectfully.
“I am a water elemental,” Shu’ei proudly boasted. He moved closer to the pirates and as he got closer to the edge of the freshwater pond he shrunk to no taller than Piper.
“How do you know my father, Shu’ei?” Jenny asked respectfully.
“He and I spent a lot of time together ages ago, right at this very pond.” Shu’ei mused. “It seems the Blackbirch family is drawn to this island. And I assume your next question will be…”
“How do we get off?” Jenny asked without provocation.
“HA!” Shu’ei wave-like form lashed out a whip of water and slipped back that seemed as if he slapped his knee. “I knew it; you are exactly like your father!” A rush of sound like the rolling of waves on a rocky shore made the sound of a deep rumbling laughter. “You know if your child comes to MY Island I will not have any more boats to get them off the island.”
“You have a ship on this island?” Jenny gasped. “How?”
“You would be surprised what washes up on my shores.” Shu’ei said in a matter of fact tone. “And I didn’t say it was a ship, I said a boat. Follow me.” The water flowed out from the edge of the pond onto the rock and continued deep into the trees.
Jenny looked at her crew; they in turn looked back at her and shrugged. The pirates followed the small wave into the trees to a small river deeper inside the forest and there lay a small rowboat with only one paddle.
“Here is your boat, Captain Blackbirch.” The small wave tittered as if it had just told a joke.
“How are we supposed to navigate that tiny boat in these seas and find our beloved Duchess?” hissed Bad Rum from behind the rest of the party as he emerged in the clearing.
“Perhaps you can turn yourself into a mermaid and push us, Rumsy!” Kilzar roared in laughter at the expense of their changeling crewmember.
“Very funny little man,” Bad Rums face contorted and shifted to that of a feral shifter with long teeth. “How about I just bite out your other eye and be done with you?”
“Enough!” Salt interjected. “You two will someday learn to cooperate, especially in the presence of our captain.” He then turned to the small wave perched at the bow of the small rowboat. “Perhaps you can help us, little elemental.”
“And what would you have me do?” Shu’ei scoffed at the notion of doing more than it had anticipated. “I already am providing you with a boat.”
“As you can see this boat is without propulsion.” Salt began to weave his deal with the elemental. “If you are able to get us back to our ship, you may have your boat back, plus a ship of your own.”
“You plan on giving Shu’ei the helm of Blackfin’s Onyx,” Jenny laughed. “Brilliant!”
“What do you say little elemental?” Salt stated respectfully, “Do we have an accord?”
“Indeed we do!” The small elemental dissipated underneath the small rowboat for a moment then by some unnatural means a roaring water could be heard upstream.
“Everyone in the boat quickly,” barked the bosun.
Just as everyone had boarded the small rowboat a large wave rolled from out of nowhere to sweep the little boat out to sea.

Before the Attack (Original Fiction by Xan)

“Father,” Jenny roared through the thick oak door of the inn’s finest suite, “you had better not be in bed with that sweet young barmaid you was flirting with all last night!” Her voice began to show signs of impatience as she pounded on the door with more force. “That’s it! I’m coming in!” She screamed as she backed away from the door and across the hallway. She huffed a deep breath and charged at the door with her shoulder. The door crashed open as it broke of its rusted hinges. The sight that Jenny expected to see was not the one that awaited her in the suite of her father, Captain “Red Dog” Blackbirch.
Jenny nearly lost her footing as she slipped on the crimson pool developing on the wooden floor. His signature black and red coat lay on the bed at the far side of the room folded eloquently, probably from the night before. A man lay on a table in the middle of the room gasping for air, his white shirt stained burgundy by his own blood lay torn open exposing his red curls of hair matted with blood as well and a strange marking carved into his flesh.
“Jenny,” he gasped.
“Who did this to you father?” Jenny dashed to his side, bundling his shirt on the wound and trying to stop the blood.
“It is too late for me Jenny,” the fading captain gurgled out. “The Dryad Duchess is yours. Take her crew as your own. Leave here, now.”
“Father, what happened?” Jenny sobbed “Who did this to you?”
“Not… much… time…” he garbled out between coughs of blood. “Blackfin marked me with his Black Delta. He wanted me dead, and my ship to be his.” Jenny tried in vain to keep him breathing but the brand carved into his flesh ran to the bone. “You musn’t go after him, Jenny. Promise me!”
“Father, what will you have me do? Run from him like a coward?” The fire of revenge burned in her tear filled eyes as she hung onto her father’s final words.
“Take me hook, it controls the Duchess. You know that the elementals bound to its hull will only be controlled by its power.” He gasped. “Promise me you will not go looking for Blackfin, but you will RUN and take the Duchess far away from here.”
“I promise.” Jenny sobbed as her father’s last breath gurgled from his slack jaw. “For now…”

“Attack on the Dryad Dutchess” Original Fiction by Xan

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT This is the story I came up with from the picture I previously mentioned. ENJOY!

“His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a ham-plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling.” (Stevenson, 1883)

Awakening

“What happened?”

The rays of the bright sun rushed into her eyes like a tidal wave as she tried to focus on the shadow looming in the middle of the flood. As her eyes slowly came into focus the image of her battered and rusted warforged bosun came into view.

We have been marooned Cap’n.” The towering warforged replied to his captain in his rust stricken metallic voice.

She blinked and tried to rub her eyes as the white sand of the beach scratched her face. “Where is my Dryad Dutchess?” She rubbed her head where a large knot could be felt underneath her ebony curls. She winced at the mere touch of the swelling mass.

“Blackfin took her Cap’n.” A potbellied dwarf piped up from behind the massive warforged. His normal orange mohawk drenched in seawater lay like kelp over a manatees head after surfacing.

“Kilzar, my old friend,” The deposed captain placed a hand on the bare shoulder of her long time friend. “That ugly pirate has returned to take back what I have rightfully stolen.”

The dwarf looked up at his captain and smiled, “Aye.” His mechanical eye gleamed blue as it hummed and whirred as it telescoped out and back in focusing on his friend’s battered face. “The filthy shark killed more than half yer crew and shipwrecked us all on this blasted island.” He cursed under his breath while he wrung out his long crimson beard and tried his best to stand his mohawk back up straight. His blue tattoos all over his body and face almost seemed to writhe like snakes when he moved.

The immense pile of rust that was Ol’ Salt piped in with his tarnished voice, “Role call has turned up as; I yer bos’n, Kilzar yer quartermaster, Maccus ‘n Piper yer gunner and powder monkey, and ‘Bad Rum’ Maurice yer cooper. Ma’am.”

Slowly lifting herself to her feet she groaned, “It seems that my best men survived, eh Salt?”

“Aye Cap’n,” he grated.”

“It seems then that Captain Jenny Blackbirch is in need of a new vessel.” She wrung out her own hair as she looked at her lightened crew. “But what exactly happened to us Salt? How did I lose my precious Dutchess?”

Ol’ Salt produced his Captain’s hat and handed it back to her as he relayed the tale of the attack on the Dutchess.

A Bosun’s Tale

“We were sailing to the Straits of Xaloc where we usually…” Ol’ Salt cleared out his throat with a gurgle and a cough of oil and rust before he continued “where we toil at our honest profession.” The crew laughed at his choice of words. “We were approaching our favorite spot to weigh anchor and await the next merchant ship to arrive on its way from Sharn to the outpost of Weatherdeep on Xen’drik when we seemed to have run aground. Now Cap’n, you’n I both know these waters better’n any man and to run aground in the Straits is damn’d near impossible.”

Kilzar sat down on a stump and rolled his eye as the mechanical one scraped in and out with the grit of sand marring it as it moved. “Just because you were once an honorable marine during the war doesn’t mean you can navigate the tides n’ weather always, Salty.” He popped his mechanical eye out and spit on it and tried to polish it with his beard to get the sand off.

“As I said Cap’n,” Ol’ Salt continued, “we ran aground in the middle of the Straits.”

“How is that possible, Salt?” Jenny queried as she rubbed the knot on her head. “And I guess I can credit this knot to my foggy memories of the event.”

“Aye ma’am,” was the squeaky reply of the young gnome they called Piper. His ruddy cheeks could be seen for the first time in months as he was washed clean by the sea from all the cannon powder he was usually covered in. “The ol’ shark Blackfin knocked you good on the noggin’ Cap’n.”

“We are getting ahead of the story,” Salt retorted. “We had no more as gained our footing on deck when tentacles started crawling up the sides of the boat. We had been caught by one of those creatures, the ones from sea myth, those Kray-kens.”

“Crack’n,” said Maccus.

“Krah-kun,” barked Bad Rum.

“Regardless,” snapped Salt. “The giant squid believed only in fairy tales and nightmares had grabbed a hold of your poor Dutchess and began crushing masts and rudders.” Salt seemed to creak and groan in his joints as if he shuddered at the thought of this beast doing the same thing to his own frame. “Then came the real shock, Blackfin and his crew came around a nearby cove aboard his ship, The Sea Lance; As if he had taught that creature to lay in wait for us.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that in the slightest,” Kilzar chimed in as he popped his polished eye back into the hollow socket of his mechanical eye.

Salt’s voice box scraped out the words as he continued. “We were boarded as we were helpless in the grasp of the Kray-ken.”

“Crack’n,” snapped Bad Rum.

“Krah-kun,” whispered Maccus.

“Anyway,” growled Salt. “We were boarded by Blackfin and his band. You’d been proud of yer crew ma’am. Each man proved his mettle a hundred times over as they lay waste to three to four of Blackfin’s crew before bein’ cut down themselves.” Salt seemed to groan, but it was just his body creaking with the white sand mingling with the rust in his salt corroded joints. “You ma’am then squared off with Blackfin. You fought honorably, despite Blackfin’s predilection for cheating.”

“Predilection?” Kilzar grumbled. “Stop speaking like a Marine mate and speak to us like we are educated pirates.”

“His fondness for cheating,” if Salt could sneer he would have done so to the quartermaster.

Kilzar smiled.

“Despite all odd ma’am, Blackfin got the best of ye when one of his crew, a crimson red painted warforged skulked behind ye and knocked you on the head with his massive sledge of a hand.” Salt shuttered at the image replaying in his mind. “It is a wonder you are still alive ma’am.”

“So that is how we ended up on this island somewhere between Xen’drik and Khorvaire?” Jenny stood up and looked to the horizon for any sign of another spot of land. “How about we find a way off this rock and get our ship back?”

TO BE CONTINUED…